First We Feast’s Sarah Baird Talks Liquor and Winston Churchill with Steven Soderbergh

“Soderbergh discovered the drink—a centuries-old, clear, grape-based spirit native to Bolivia—while filming Che in 2008 and, almost on a whim, decided to bring the spirit to the U.S.

‘It was one of those (probably singani-induced) conversations where people were like, “You should take this to the U.S., man, that would be great!” The question of whether or not I should’ve just bought cases and made a personal stash remains to be seen,’ said Soderbergh. ‘We got lucky, in a sense, because people had never heard of it. The drink has a 500 year story and no one really knew about it because they don’t export it. It’s getting out there now because of that one night where I said, “Why not?”‘